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Thursday, 31 March 2016

There
have been 4,556 cases of ‘severe corporal punishment’ of children in
Swaziland’s schools over the past four years, an international news
organisation reported.

Star Africa quoted Zanele Thabede from youth group
Super Buddies, who leads a team looking into youth and child issues, who in an
interview said the number of whippings dated from 2012.

Star
Africa reported Thabede saying, ‘Corporal punishment by teachers and principals
is legal and routinely practiced and there is a growing trend of incarcerating
of children and youth in the Malkerns Industrial School for Rehabilitation
because of “unruly” behaviour.’

There is confusion in Swaziland
as to whether corporal punishment has been banned in schools. It is believed
that a directive was issued to schools in 2012 not to use corporal punishment
but few teachers appear to know it had been made.

The Times of Swaziland reported in
October 2015 that Phineas Magagula, Minister of Education and Training, warned
that teachers who beat pupils should be reported to the ministry so that they
could be disciplined.

Swaziland has a long history of
atrocities committed by teachers against their pupils in the name of
‘discipline’. Although there were rulesabout how corporal punishment
could be administered, these were largely ignored.

As recently as September 2015,
the Times reporteda 17-year-old school pupil died
after allegedly being beaten at school. The pupil reportedly had a seizure.

In March 2015, a primary school
teacher at the Florence Christian Academy was charged with
causing grievous bodily harm after allegedly giving 200 strokes of the cane to
a 12-year-old pupil on her buttocks and all over her body.

In February 2015, the headteacher
of Mayiwane High School Anderson
Mkhonta reportedly admitted giving 15 strokes to a form 1 pupil for not
wearing a neck tie properly.

In
April 2015, parents reportedly complainedto the Ndlalane Primary School after a
teacher beat pupils for not following his instruction and shaving their
hair.

In October 2014, 20 pupils were
thrashedbefore
they sat an examination because they had been absent from school studying for
the exam the previous day.

In October 2015,
the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in
effect owned by King Mswati III and the voice of the traditionalists in
Swaziland published an article against the abolition of corporal
punishment.

Observer
journalist Fanyana Mabuza wrote that if corporal punishment was
abolished, ‘[T]he future could be bleak, especially for the children who for
their own good need a bit of spanking to bring them to order.’

The article in the Observer, a newspaper that believes
Swaziland will be a ‘First World’ nation by 2022 added, ‘We just do not see the
future clearly without the cane in our schools.’

Wednesday, 30 March 2016

King Mswati III, the absolute monarch in Swaziland, is
to get a 9 percent increase for his spending from the taxpayer, while elderly
pensions are frozen because there is not enough money to pay for increases.

The news about King Mswati’s budget increase has not
been reported in Swaziland, where media routinely censor news about the King.

King Mswati’s ‘Civil List’, the money given to him to
run the Royal household, will increase by E30m (US$1.9m) in the coming financial
year to E370m (US$24m).

The King also receives income from a variety of
businesses in the kingdom. For example, he holds 25 percent of all mineral
wealth ‘in trust for the Swazi nation.’ In reality he uses this money to fund
his lavish lifestyle, which includes 13 palaces, a private jet, fleets of
Mercedes and BMW cars and at least one Rolls Royce.

Earlier this month (March 2016), it was revealed the
King’s share of the just-reopened Lufafa Gold Mine at Hhelehhele in the Hhohho region
of
Swaziland could be worth up to US$149 million.

Meanwhile, seven in ten of his 1.3 million subjects
live in abject poverty with incomes of less than US$2 per day.

The increase in the King’s budget was contained in the
annual budget estimates in February 2016. Although the Swazi media covered
aspects of the budget, the news about the King was not published.

Meanwhile, the same budget pegged the elderly grant
(pensions), which are for people aged 60 and over, at E240 per month. A total
of E170,765,454
(about US$11m) was paid in elderly grants in the 2015 – 2016 financial year.
This was about half the E340 million that the King received as ‘Civil List’ to
fund the Royal household.

Tuesday, 29 March 2016

As the Swaziland Government
goes cap-in-hand to the international community to seek money to stop people starving as a result of drought, news has emerged that US$12 million is to be spent on decorating the Royal Terminal
Building at King Mswati III (KMIII) Airport.

KMIII, formerly known as
Sikhuphe, is an airport built in the wilderness in Swaziland. It has been
widely criticised outside the kingdom where King Mswati rules as sub-Saharan
Africa’s last absolute monarch as a vanity project for the King.

Despite efforts by the
Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority and others to disguise the fact, the airport
has not attracted the international flights the airport’s supporters promised. The airport
officially opened in March 2014 but flights did not start until the following
October. The only route served is with OR Tambo in Johannesburg, South Africa,
which is a flying time of less than an hour. Fewer than 100 passengers a day on
average fly from the airport.

The cost of building the
airport is unknown, but estimates widely reported by the media suggest it could
have been as much as US$250 - 300 million. It took at least 10 years to build
and was opened at least four years behind schedule.

It reported, ‘The money for
the project termed VVPI Royal Terminal, according to government estimates, will
be sourced locally for the procurement of ground handling equipment.’

It added, ‘Solomon Dube,
Director of the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) says the airport is
a commercial airlines facility and therefore needs to accommodate important
guests who require detailed welcoming protocol separately.’

At present 70
percent of King Mswati’s 1.3 million subjects live in abject poverty, with
incomes less than US$2 a day. Swaziland also has the highest rate of HIV
infection in the world. In
2003, the International Monetary Fund said the airport should
not be built because it
would divert funds away from much needed projects to fight poverty in
Swaziland.

There is no
obvious need for the new airport which is being built
in the Swazi wilderness 80 kilometres east of the Swazi capital Mbabane.Major airports already exist less than an hour’s
flying time away in South Africa with connecting routes to Swaziland.

There has never been a needs analysis undertaken on
the airport, and Swaziland’s airport at Matsapha which closed to make way for
KMIII only carried about 70,000 passengers a year.

Today, Swaziland is in the grip of a drought crisis.
In February 2016, the Swazi Government announced it did not have enough money
to give drought relief. It asked for immediate
emergency donations amounting to US$16 million. Since then it
has been revealed that the Swazi Government intends to spend at least US$9
million on a private jet plane for the King.

Thursday, 10 March 2016

Four supporters of the Communist Party of Swaziland
(CPS) have been arrested and charged following an alleged
arson attack on rondavels in a-Ngcamphalala Chiefdom in Siphofaneni under
the leadership of Chief Mshikashika II.

The Party said in a statement
they were arrested during a continuing campaign against the ‘feudal’ rule of
King Mswati III, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The CPS said, ‘CPS activists are playing a prominent
role in mobilizing communities to stop feudal leaders from barring boys from
schooling and attending university because of their non-attendance at the
King’s annual ritualistic events.

‘Such protests have cantered in amongst other many
communities, on Siphofaneni, Ka-Ngcamphalala Chiefdom as well as on Siyandle,
in Shiselweni Region. Community members held a meeting at Siphofaneni to tell
the chief that the abuse of people in the name of culture must end.’

It added, ‘The Communist Party of Swaziland is calling
for robust solidarity with the local communities under feudal rule in our
country who have been protesting efforts to punish young boys for not taking
part in King Mswati’s “traditional” ceremonies.’

The statement added, ‘The CPS is confronting the
Mswati regime on its manipulation of traditional cultural practices for dubious
purposes, mainly to intimidate Swazis into reverence for the monarchy.’

The CPS said it had been leafleting rural areas,
‘to mobilise opposition to royal rule and its obsequious implementation by
local chiefs. This is being done in a tense situation of surveillance and
intimidation by undercover police and military intelligence.’

The four men arrested will appear at Siteki
Magistrate court on charges of arson.

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Swaziland is to spend US$150 million on security in
the coming year, the kingdom’s annual budget reveals.

It amounts to 11 percent of the tiny kingdom’s total
budget.

The money will be spent on the army (USDF), police and
correctional services. It continues a trend of massive military spending by King
Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The security budget of E2.3bn is more than the E2.0bn
set aside for health. The total budget is E20.6bn.

In his budget speech
Finance Minister Martin Dlamini, said, ‘Government has, over the past years,
actively enhanced the capacity of the USDF and the Police in order to safeguard
peace and security of Swazis and their property.’

He added, ‘Government will therefore ensure that the
USDF and Police continue to have what they need to ensure Swazis are secure.’

He said, ‘These resources will be utilized to further
strengthen the USDF, Correctional Services and the Police. Specific emphasis
will be placed on strengthening intelligence capability, training and welfare.’

Swaziland is a tiny landlocked kingdom with a
population of about 1.4 million people. Seven in ten live in abject poverty,
with incomes of less than US$2 per day.

Political parties are banned from taking part in
elections and groups advocating multi-party democracy are banned under the
Suppression of Terrorism Act.

This followed a series of
prodemocracy uprisings in North Africa, leading to what became known as the
‘Arab Spring’. King Mswati was fearful something similar could happen in his
kingdom.A Facebook group calling itself
the April 12 Uprising had already called for an overthrow of the King.

In February 2011, Sithole told an
open stakeholder dialogue on the 2011-2012 budget and Fiscal Adjustment
Roadmap, ‘Yes, we are spending a lot on the army but we are not anticipating
what is happening in North Africa to come here,’ he said.

He added, ‘However, the army is
there to avoid such situations.’

In 2009, the Swazi Government was
revealed to be engaged in arms
dealing by the United
States. A diplomatic cable written by Maurice Parker, the then US Ambassador to
Swaziland, and later published by WikiLeaks revealed that the UK Government had
blocked an arms deal between a UK company Unionlet and the Swaziland Government
because it feared their ‘possible use for internal repression’.

The Swaziland Government said it
wanted the items to fulfil its United Nations ‘peacekeeping’ obligations in
Africa.

The UK Government did not believe
it and thought either the weapons would be used against the Swazi civilian
population, or they were being bought in order to sell on to another country,
possibly Iran. The UK Government blocked the deal.

In his diplomatic cable, Parker
said, ‘The array of weapons requested would not be needed for the first phases
of peacekeeping, although it is possible someone tried to convince the Swazi
government they were required. The GKOS [Government of the Kingdom of
Swaziland] may have been attempting to build up domestic capability to deal
with unrest, or was possibly acting as an intermediary for a third party such
as Zimbabwe or a Middle Eastern country that had cash, diamonds or goods to
trade.’

Once the cable became public in
2011, John Kunene, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, who signed the original deal in 2008, said
the kingdom had never given up trying to buy the weapons.

Tuesday, 8 March 2016

“I am a
victim of circumstances”, says activist Mphandlana ‘Victim’ Shongwe of the
nickname he is known by because of the decades of state harassment he has
endured in his homeland, Swaziland. “But what has kept me going is the desire
to be free”, writes Kenworthy News Media.

“Victim”
is the name that Mphandlana Shongwe – a founding member of Swaziland’s
democratic movement, PUDEMO – is commonly known by in the small absolute
monarchy of Swaziland. He was given his nickname, after reflecting on his life
in Matsapha Central Prison, while awaiting trial for treason in 1990.

It was
here he started counting the many setbacks he had experienced. He has been
expelled from college, been denied a living by the government because of his
activism, been arrested on many occasions for trivial “offences” such as
shouting “viva PUDEMO” and wearing a PUDEMO-t-shirt, and been held in solitary
confinement, beaten up and tortured by the police on several occasions.

More
sadness than joy
As with most other ordinary Swazis, Victim had to choose at an early age
whether or not to accept the enforced poverty and cultural control that is a
fundamental part of King Mswati’s Swaziland.

“My
introduction to poverty and oppression at a tender age had prepared me for a
life of activism”, Victim says of his childhood. “My life has seen more sadness
than joy, more funerals than weddings, and more visits to police cells than
parties”.

And he
has had a life of struggle for justice and democracy that neither his daughter,
his daughter’s mother nor his own mother have been able to understand.

Uneasy
beginnings
Victim, who was born on the 27th of September 1960, did not have an easy
childhood. When he was six, his father was arrested and charged with murder and
died a few years later in prison. His mother suffered from a stroke that left
her temporarily paralysed and meant she had to return to her parents’
homestead.

Victim
ended up in a mission school, where he got his first introduction to oppression
and the struggle to end it. Firstly, by being on the receiving end of whippings
by his teachers, and secondly by hearing about the 1976 Soweto uprising in
neighbouring South Africa in history lessons.

Victim
and his classmate Richard, who were two of the top students, both listened
attentively. Later in life, they would put the learnings of these lessons to
very different use when they met on the streets of Manzini and Mbabane, Victim
as a political activist, Richard as a police officer.

No
independent thinking
It was in high school that Victim first started to reflect on the influence of
the unreflective “banking model” of teaching that was, and is still, employed
as the manner of teaching in many schools in Swaziland.

“As
students, we lacked independent thinking. We were treated as if we were empty
containers which needed to be filled up with knowledge. I would later discover
that this was intentional in order to keep the Swazi student docile. The school
curriculum was designed, as it is still designed, to produce a student who
accepts things as they are without question”, Victim says of his high school
days.

He began
to link the problem of Swaziland’s educational system with the broader lack of
democracy, leadership and direction in Swaziland, and as a result of these
reflections, Victim ended up taking a teacher’s degree after having finishing
high school.

No sleep
‘till justice
It was at teacher’s training college, that Victim truly became aware of the
injustices of the Tinkundla-system of Swaziland’s absolute monarchy. And it was
at here that he started his “career” as a more-or-less full time activist.

“When people went to sleep, we went to distribute pamphlets”, he says of this
period of his life.

It was as
a result of Victim’s involvement in a seemingly endless row of door-to-door
campaigns, pamphlet distributions and political meetings that the he ended up
facing a long prison sentence for the first, but by no means the last, time.

Treason
trial
Along with eleven other activists, including PUDEMO President Mario Masuku,
Victim was arrested and charged with treason in 1990.

Amongst
the charges was conspiring to form a political party with a military wing with
the intention of overthrowing King Mswati’s hand-picked government, organising
trade unions and holding political meetings where overthrowing this government
was discussed.

But as
several prosecution witnesses claimed that their statements had been made under
threats, and other prosecution witnesses’ statements seemed rehearsed, the
judge ruled that any treasonable or subversive activities had not been proved.

A public
face
Victim was given a six month-sentence, for a couple of minor charges, instead
of the yearlong sentences that the prosecutor had called for. And instead of
crushing the movement, the trial had given PUDEMO and Victim a public face both
in Swaziland and beyond.

The High
Court had also proved that there was no armed insurrection being planned by
PUDEMO, but that the organisation was simply concerned with bringing true
democracy to Swaziland.

As he had
already been in jail for this duration, Victim was released immediately.

“It was
that trial that registered the people’s movement, and from thereon we have been
in and out of courts but never looked back”, Victim says of the importance of
the trial.

The usual
suspect
Another effect of the trial was that the state increased the victimisation of
PUDEMO leaders. President Mario Masuku was dismissed in the local bank he had
worked in for 18 years, Victim was expelled from college, and many others
suffered a similar fate.

In fact
it only took a couple of weeks for the police to detain Victim again, this time
on consecutive detention orders without him and his two co-detainees being told
what the charges against them were.

The trio
went on a hunger strike that only ended after several weeks of agony, a royal
pardon, and after Victim had suffered from heart failure and was told by a
doctor that he could easily die.

A bright
future?
Since the hunger strike, Victim has been in and out of prison and has been
constantly harassed and on occasion beaten up and tortured by the police. He
has also remained unemployed because of his PUDEMO activism.

In 1994
he was arrested for demonstrating peacefully against the government, and became
an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience. In 2006 he was beaten
unconscious by police under interrogation and dumped in a hospital bleeding
profusely. In 2009 he was arrested for shouting slogans wearing a PUDEMO
t-shirt, and charged with terrorism. And the list goes on.

“Long prison terms are a risk that anyone who stands up against the system
face”, says Victim. “But every time I face danger, I recall the words of ANC
member Solomon Mahlangu, who, when leaving the court to be hanged by the
apartheid regime in 1979, said: ‘Mama, tell my people that I love them and my
blood shall nourish the tree of freedom’”.

No
personal agenda
And regardless of the setbacks and endless victimisation, Victim is today a
free man in an unfree country (although out on bail since 2006, and having to
report to the police station every Friday).

He is
optimistic about the future of Swaziland and believes that it is a matter of
years, not decades, before it will become a democracy.

But
Victim also warns of the dangers of the struggle for democracy and freedom, the
closer victory seems at hand.

“The hour before dawn is a period where some people start pushing personal
agendas at the expense of progress. And any agenda which excludes group
representation is bound to keep the status quo intact”, he says, alluding to
the fact that the struggle is not about personal gain but a constant fight for
a better future for everyone.

Not on a
silver plate
He also insists that it is obvious that democracy will not be delivered on a
silver plate or necessarily or automatically follow a collapse of King Mswati’s
Tinkundla-regime.

“There is
no scenario in history where the ruling class voluntarily handed over power to
the oppressed”, Victim emphasises.

“The
country is where it is today because people were quiet when they were supposed
to speak. But change will only come when the people of Swaziland choose to die
on the streets, so to speak, if necessary. There has never been a time when I
thought of giving up the struggle and I have never looked back with despair,
although I have nothing in material form except the willpower to hold, even
when there is nothing to hold on to”.

This
article is based on Mphandlana “Victim” Shongwes book “The Last Mile”, as well
as on conversations and correspondence between the author and Shongwe.

Swaziland
has been an absolute monarchy since 1973, where the King Sobhuza declared a
State of Emergency that banned all political parties and centralised all power
within the monarchy.

The 2005
constitution reinforces this by leaving freedom of speech and control of
virtually all aspects of government and the judiciary at the mercy of the king,
as does the Suppression of Terrorism Act, an “inherently repressive act”
according to Amnesty International, which defines terrorism in very sweeping
terms.

Swazi
legislation thus leaves almost no political space for the population but gives
the police and security forces almost unlimited powers to clamp down heavily on
peaceful demonstrations and meetings deemed to be “political”.

Monday, 7 March 2016

Only weeks after it
was announced Swaziland would seek E143 million (US$9 million) from the
international community because it could not pay for drought relief, the Swazi
Finance Minister announced the Government would buy the kingdom’s autocratic
monarch King Mswati III a jet plane costing at least E96 million.

The Observer on Saturday, a
newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, reported the money was set aside as
part of the annual budget announced by the Swazi Finance Minister Martin
Dlamini on Friday (4 March 2016).

About 300,000 of the kingdom’s 1.4 million
population are
reportedly facing a food crisis caused by the drought presently crippling
Swaziland. Rural
people are in danger of severe malnutrition and it has been reported that there
is only enough water to supply the Swazi capital Mbabane for between one and
three weeks.

On 18 February 2016, Swazi Prime Minister Barnabas
Dlamini declared a state of emergency and said Swaziland would need E248 million over the coming two months for drought relief.

The Observer reported the
E96 million was set aside for a jet for the King after members of the
parliament, many of them appointed by the King, urged the Swazi Government to consider
buying the King a plane to replace the DC-9 jet (also known as an MD-87) which he already
has. It has been the subject
of legal disputes in both Canada and the British Virgin Islands.

Earlier this month (March 2016), it was reported that King
Mswati’s share of the just-reopened Lufafa
Gold Mine at Hhelehhele in the Hhohho region of Swaziland could
be worth up to US$149 million.

Wednesday, 2 March 2016

The drought in Swaziland that its absolute monarch
King Mswati III declared
was over has devastated the kingdom, a United Nations report
revealed.

About 300,000 people, one in four of King Mswati’s
subjects, have been targeted for assistance because of the drought. Rural
people are in danger of severe malnutrition and there is only enough water to
supply the Swazi capital Mbabane for between one and three weeks.

The report that covers February 2016 stated that, ‘maize
production fell by 31 percent in 2015, and is expected to be lower in the 2016
crop season, placing at least 300,000 people in dire need of assistance,
specifically for food and water.’

The
report issued by the Office of the Resident Coordinator of the UN Country Team in Swaziland
said, ‘Nearly one-third of the rural population has a high expenditure on food,
thus having little capacity to cope with the combined effects of production
shortfalls and increased market prices, and can quickly fall further into food
insecurity. Swaziland has seen an increase of food insecurity in the country
with many households unable to eat three meals a day.’

It added, ‘Acute malnutrition rates have increased by
2.5 per cent from the average of 3 to 5.5 percent [of the population].’

The report stated, ‘The Hawane Dam, which feeds the
capital, Mbabane, stands at 17 percent, enough from one to three weeks only.
The city has started water rationing for the first time in its history.’

The Swazi Government declared a national emergency on
18 February 2016, only
weeks after King Mswati preached to his subjects that God had saved
Swaziland from the drought.

Now, the Swazi Government is asking for international
assistance to pay for drought relief. The United Nations estimated donors would
have to raise US$64 million for Swaziland.

The irony is that the bulk of this money will come
from countries that are multi-party democracies. King Mswati rules Swaziland as
an absolute monarch and political parties are banned from taking part in
elections. Groups advocating for multi-party democracy are banned under the Suppression
of Terrorism Act. The King and the Government he hand-picks often decry multi-party
democracies and advocate their own ‘monarchical democracy’ as a preferred model
of governance.

The UN report stated, ‘Ninety percent of Swaziland’s
sugar cash crop relies on irrigation, which has significantly been hampered by
the rationing of water. Sugarcane harvests, which accounts for a staggering 21
percent of Swaziland’s GDP, has been hit hard, spelling trouble for government
finances and possible service delivery.’

The report added, ‘The reduction of water has impacted
the education of children as (especially urban) schools depend on flushing toilet
systems; but even in the rural areas, existing boreholes are running dry. In
all 189,000 learners and 8,157 teachers and support staff has been affected
nationally of which 23,633 learners and 1,654 teachers and support staff are
from around Mbabane, according to recent assessments.

‘The situation also puts almost 197,157 students,
teachers and workers nationally, at risk of water borne diseases and
malnutrition, due to the water, sanitation/hygiene conditions. Another main
concern is the contamination of water which can increase the number of
water-borne diseases in the country.

‘The country has one of the highest prevalence of
HIV-infected adults (26 percent of people aged 15-49). Food insecurity in the
country affects anti-retroviral (ARV) intake as ARVs are meant to be taken with
food and water. It also affects access to medical facilities as some people are
unable to make the journey to the facilities due to illness, weakness or lack
of finances.’